Maybe This Explains Why Salon Is Pushing Back Against #Gosnell Abortion Horror Story

Questions about why major news organizations were refusing to cover gruesome revelations in the trial of Philadelphia abortion clinic operator Dr. Kermit Gosnell finally boiled over today: A Washington Post health reporter told blogger Mollie Hemingway that Gosnell’s trial was a “local crime” story, not a matter of policy and Breitbart.com’s John Nolte posted a photo of empty seats in the reserved press section at Gosnell’s trial. Finally, Conor Friedersdorf, a writer for the liberal Atlantic Online published a column with the headline: “Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story.”

The strongest resistance to the story came from Salon.com, which published not one but two articles dismissing the complaints about media bias: “There is no Gosnell coverup,” by Irin Carmon, and “On Gosnell ‘blackout,’ where were conservatives before this week?” by Alex Seitz-Wald. And judging by an unsolicited Twitter reaction from Salon.com’s director of communications, Liam O’Donoghue, this pro-abortion message reflects an organizational directive:

O’Donoghue’s message got re-Tweeted by Ann Coulter, prompting me to remark:

Salon.com has been bleeding red ink since the 1990s and last year saw its founder, David Talbot, replaced by a new CEO, former HuffPo executive Cindy Jeffers. At that time, the SiliconBeat blog for the the San Jose Mercury News wrote:

How is this company still in business? . . .
For the three months ending in December 2011, the company lost $997,000 on $1.03 million in revenues. So, they’re making about half the money need to just to cover expenses.

Apparently, the liberal talking-head media market isn’t as lucrative as Salon.com’s investors had hoped.

UPDATE: Yeah, this might leave a mark:

 

Related posts